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My Experience With Meningitis: Francesca's Story

Originally mistaken for the flu, meningitis nearly killed Francesca Testa. Now she's advocating for young people to get vaccinated.

As a 17-year-old senior in high school, Francesca Testa didn’t know much about meningitis. Eight years later, not only does she know all about the disease, she also considers herself lucky to be alive after a brush with it. Testa, of Cheshire, Conn., contracted bacterial meningitis in 2006, about a month before she was scheduled to get vaccinated during her pre-college physical.

Doctors were never able to determine how she caught meningitis, which is an inflammation of the protective covering that surrounds the brain and spinal cord and can potentially lead to brain damage, hearing loss, learning disabilities, or even death.

At first, they thought that Testa had the flu. That’s because many symptoms of meningitis, including fever, nausea, vomiting, and severe headaches, mimic the flu. “For a couple of weeks before I was diagnosed, I had a fever, but it wasn’t too high,” Testa recalls. “I had body aches and problems breathing because I also have asthma. I was just kind of sick in general.”

Carol J. Baker, MD, pediatric infectious diseases specialist and professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, says outbreaks of certain types of meningitis tend to peak in late winter and early spring, just like the flu — another reason why the two conditions get confused with each other.

When Testa's fever eventually reached 104 and she became dizzy and started vomiting, she went to see her doctor again, who still told her it was probably the flu or pneumonia. She was told to go home, go to bed, and drink plenty of fluids.

But the next morning, Testa’s mom couldn’t wake her, and she called 911. At the hospital, doctors saw a purplish spotty rash, a sign of septicaemia, a life-threatening blood infection that can accompany meningitis. “Only one in four patients with bacterial meningitis get these spots,” Dr. Baker says. And even when they do appear, it may be too late, she adds. The spots start small, but they can grow to be bruise-like.

Her doctors ordered a spinal tap to analyze the fluid surrounding her brain and spinal cord, which led to a meningitis diagnosis. Testa was airlifted to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where her parents were told she had only a 25 percent chance of survival. The doctors at Yale started her on a treatment that they usually don’t give anyone under 18, and it saved her life. “I was lucky that the treatment stopped the infection and they were able to save all my limbs and organs,” she says.

Testa was in the hospital for two and a half weeks, most of that time spent in a coma and on a respirator. When she came out of the coma, she had to relearn basic functions like walking, showering, and going to the bathroom. She was able to attend her high school prom using a walker.

Getting Her Life Back

It took six to eight months of therapy for Testa to return to feeling close to normal. She had been a swimmer before she became ill and was determined to return to competitive swimming. And she did.

Testa had planned to go to college about 600 miles from home, but she instead enrolled in Western Connecticut Statue University in Danbury, where today she works in the admissions office, in order to be near her family and doctors. She loves having the opportunity to tell potential candidates and incoming freshmen — a group of people with an increased risk of contracting meningitis — of the importance of getting vaccinated.

You wouldn’t know it from looking at Testa, but she experienced some permanent damage from the bacterial meningitis. She has some vision loss, loss of hearing in her right ear, and scars from the rash on her legs, back, stomach, and scalp, as well as some brain swelling.

Testa’s Message: Get the Meningitis Vaccine

If Testa could tell other young adults anything about protecting themselves from meningitis, it would be this: Get vaccinated. “You don’t think it can happen to you, but it can happen to anyone,” she says. It’s also important to know the causes of meningitis and meningitis symptoms, she adds.

There are two vaccines that protect against most forms of bacterial meningitis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children get the meningococcal vaccine at age 11 or 12 and receive a booster when they are 16. Infants, children, and young adults between the ages of 16 and 21 are at highest risk of contracting meningitis.

As a result of her experience, Testa's career plans now focus in the health arena. She will be attending Southern Connecticut State University in the fall of 2014 for a master’s in public health. And she also plans to keep helping spread awareness about meningitis through her involvement with the National Meningitis Association.